And, after a string of brief affairs, she had finally walked straight past him and into the arms of a Ree’hd!
What must she think of me, he thought? Rotund and red. I can feel the moisture on my face, and there’s nothing I can do about it. She must look at me and see a functionary, and in second place, a colleague, and nowhere in her eyes does she see a potential lover.
“What is it, Dan? Why are you staring at me?”
Her voice was cool and calm and it penetrated Erlam’s momentary haze of self-pity. He came back to the issue at hand and shook his head.
“I can accord you Ree’hd status in everything except murder, Kristina.”
Kristina’s face turned pale. In the dim light it seemed to Erlam that her eyes suddenly became darker, her expression just that fraction more defensive. “I haven’t murdered anyone, Dan.”
Suddenly angry, Erlam snapped, “Come on, Kristina, this is Dan Erlam, remember? Not some white-faced junior from the Agency. That was a stupid trick, sending a Ree’hd to kill Zeitman and trying to blame it on the Rundii. If the Ree’hd had succeeded, you would now be in serious trouble. Whether or not you regard yourself as a Ree’hd, you go and commit murder and you’ll end up in our own courts and be tried as a human.”
He stopped talking abruptly and stared at the woman. The burrow suddenly seemed empty, empty of all warmth, and Erlam found himself looking around, trying to see why things were so still. When he lowered his eyes to Kristina’s they were cold. Kristina was solemn and sitting perfectly still.
“I’m sorry, Dan.”
“Okay. You see my point…”
“Dan…” she struggled with the words. “Dan, I’m a Ree’hd now. I’m a Ree’hd in all that matters-”
“I accept that-”
“No, Dan. Listen to me. Let me say it so that you understand. If I were still human, if I had even felt human when Robert arrived, I would have tried to kill him on my own. But killing by unnatural means is something I’ve conditioned myself to think of as alien. The Ree’hd I asked to help me was from the city. It was only when I heard him really going through with the attack that it came home to me just how dead those Ree’hd are. And there are hundreds of them, Dan. They’re dead in every way that makes a Ree’hd, and I’m alive in every way that makes a Ree’hd. I feel so angry with the city, with my own physical kind. I feel so angry that I even feel angry with you, but it’s difficult because I know you too well to categorize you as just another human. You’re an individual and a friend. But my greatest friend is my year-kin, Urak, and my greatest love is Ree’hdworld, and my greatest fear is that we’ll never finish the development of our lives because of the interference of Earth-men and those dead Ree’hd who walk the streets of Terming.”
“I’ll say this for you, you sound like a bloody native.”
“My God, Dan, you sound nearly as bitter as Robert—why so upset?”
“It’s disorderly, Kristina, that’s why so upset! Imagine if every other human in Terming decided to become a Ree’hd and demand Ree’hd privileges—imagine the chaos! It’s irresponsible, Kristina!”
“Irresponsible! And isn’t it irresponsible to imprison hundreds of Ree’hd in your filthy, human city? Oh Dan, get your values right!”
Erlam found the smell in the burrow overpowering. After a moment’s cold silence he rose and went outside and watched the heavy skies. Being the season of change, rain—forceful and penetrating rain—would soon sweep the continent from east to west. Not gentle rain such as fell for a few minutes a day all year round, but a drenching, dark, fearful rain that drove down to the earth for hour after hour.
It was the time of year that Erlam hated most, a time when Terming seemed to drown beneath the natural forces of Ree’hdworld, and every dawn the streets were filled with the debris of native depression: the slumped forms of Ree’hd, their possessions and clothes scattered along the streets, drenched in the rain.
As it had been explained to Erlam by many of his Ree’hd friends, there was something inordinately depressing about the rain, and also about the rains that fell in the middle of winter, icy rains, rarely managing to fall as ice itself. Perhaps, thought Erlam, they become closer to their past when it rains. Perhaps, they have never lost their Ree’hdness and when the world falls quiet beneath the torrent of rain, they remember deep in their race-memory how it was to sit along the river-banks and grow into the world.
Zeitman had once told him that the rain that fell on Ree’hdworld was never pure, that it contained trace chemicals, and often quite complex organic molecules. It had taken very little time to ascertain that the Ree’hd tasted the rain, that they tasted, in particular, the other Ree’hd groups, groups that they usually never contacted. Zeitman had called it a pheromone phenomenon.
Kristina came out of the burrows behind Erlam and took his arm. “I’m sorry Dan. I didn’t want to argue with you.”
“Nor me,” said Erlam. They walked down the slope towards the skimmers. A few Ree’hd were crouched outside their burrow entrances on the high ground above the river. They watched Erlam and Erlam waved, but only two waved back. Erlam was still a relative stranger to the burrow complex and the Ree’hd always considered strangers for a long time before reacting positively.
Kristina was obviously thinking of Robert Zeitman. She asked Erlam how much he’d seen of him, and Erlam said—little. He knew that Zeitman had been several times out to the burrows and each time he had been unable to find his wife, or, for that matter, his wife’s lover. Kristina said, “Yes, I know he’s been out here. But I can’t face talking to him, not when he has such a narrow range of conversation. When I see him coming I hide.”
“I’d call that cowardly,” said Erlam. Could he, he wondered, persuade her to meet and talk with Zeitman again? To have the two of them work together again, but without the emotional involvement of old, would be a real break for the scientific establishment on Ree’hdworld. And it might draw her away from this Ree’hd, Urak.
Erlam smiled at his own thoughts. The experiments were a success, even though the Universe had died.
“Did Robert come running to you after we’d met in the city?”
In the shelter of their two skimmers Erlam’s face was quite impassive. “Running to me?”
“Telling you that I’d tried to kill him.”
Her cropped hair, trying to blow across her face in the breeze, seemed to irritate her. She brushed her scalp impatiently and in her eyes there was an expression of sadness that Erlam could not fathom. She was still interested in Zeitman, that much he could recognize; but was it from motives of vengeance, or from a desire to establish a working relationship with him again? Erlam had a very expressive face and his puzzlement was easy for Kristina to read. After a moment she said, “I’m sorry, Dan. I shouldn’t quiz you.”
“That’s all right, Kristina. I have no secrets from my few friends.”
“But Robert is more of a friend than me. I’ve cut myself off so much…”
“Right now I have just five people in my life whom I regard as anywhere near close, and I can’t be bothered arranging them in order.” His smile was brief. “And one of them is now a Ree’hd anyway, and I still can’t be bothered giving preference. I wish you felt the same.”
“Oh but I do, Dan. My ex-husband upsets me, yes, but when he stops doing that… he’s as much a friend as my other human friends. I was angry with him when we met first, a few days back, but I was angry because I thought he was ruining things for me. But he wasn’t. He didn’t know it, but he gave me the impetus I needed. He made things work for me, Dan. And I’m grateful to him. Believe me.”
“I do,” said Erlam, not believing. “And I’m glad.”
There was a silence for a moment and Kristina turned to look at the river; then Erlam told her what he knew of Robert Zeitman’s reactions to the attack.
It had been quite obvious to Zeitman that Kristina had been responsible for the attempt upon his life. It had been a clumsy attempt, and failed beca
use at the last moment the Ree’hd could not kill. But if it had worked it might well have succeeded in removing Zeitman from the scene without any repercussions. The Rundii menace in the burrows was much too well established as fact for any notions of trickery to have been entertained by the city’s Security and Investigation Agency. The one thing that would have fouled the plan, without doubt, would have been the Ree’hd assassin letting the word slip, perhaps when under the influence of drugs.
Obvious though the plan had been, the motivation had remained obscure to Zeitman. He had puzzled long and hard over why his wife (ex-wife) should have so coldly resorted to attempted murder. It fitted no pattern of behaviour that he could have attributed to Kristina, even in her current state of hatred for him. She had threatened to kill him if… but the attack must have been planned long before, and that suggested that it had always been her intention to rid herself of the burden of her overtly adolescent ex-husband.
In his confusion he had gone to Erlam and he and Erlam had got drunk together, which naturally had helped. He had begun to look back upon that time in the city burrows and laugh at the fool he had made of himself. This, to Erlam, had been a good sign and they had started to sober up, which was not easy, but less easy for the Ree’hd official who was one of Erlam’s close colleagues and who had supplied the excuse for the celebration—his terran-style marriage to one of the female Ree’hd in the city. Zeitman seemed to have thrown the bad memories away and was not suffering in consequence. Erlam had patted the depleted flagon of old Irish whiskey and consoled himself at the loss with the fact that it had not let him down. He had finalized arrangements for Susanna to join as Zeitman’s assistant, and then told Susanna. She had accepted the job with ill grace but only because Zeitman had left her uncontacted for the whole of the previous day, and she had been lost and alone. Zeitman had seemed pleased at the chance of a challenge; he had set to working on Susanna’s affections.
The last Erlam had heard, Zeitman had established friendly exchange.
Kristina seemed fairly pleased. Erlam had emphasized that it had been disappointment and confusion that had sent Zeitman “running” to him, and not anything malicious. And that was almost certainly the case.
“I notice,” Erlam concluded, changing the subject abruptly, “that every time a human visits this complex he brings back a report of increasing disdain on the part of the Ree’hd. And they certainly seem hostile to me now.” He glanced at the few Ree’hd who sat outside their burrows and still watched him without moving.
Kristina seemed irritated. “Dan, I’m not functioning as a go-between any more. Did you think I was?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I’m not. So what’s your point?”
“This bad feeling for the city. Why is it there? This open attacking of tourists. What brought it on? The city has been here for generations. The Ree’hd have only become really agitated in the last year, and the really obvious aggression has only been going on for a few months. Now, something has happened and I want to find out what. Only Zeitman seems to have the magic touch. And you, of course. Why?”
She smiled. “Zeitman feels.”
“Zeitman feels! What sort of an answer is that?” Erlam, angry, realized that he was too much on edge to get anything really constructive from Kristina. Already, with his shout, she had become solemn and unhappy again. He apologized. Kristina said, “No apology necessary, Dan. Everyone I meet seems to be jumpy. All I can say is, I feel a part of Ree’hdworld, but I don’t understand it. I’ll say more. Urak does. Every Ree’hd does. Every Ree’hd except those in the city. They don’t understand anything, and that is killing the Ree’hd out here and making them angry. I don’t know why it has happened so suddenly.
“I understand something else, Dan, and I understand it because I’m not stupid. Something very bad has happened that has upset you and Robert very much. Call it intuition, call it ten out of ten for perception. You’re both on edge, both keeping something hidden. At night there are fifty times the usual number of orbiting vessels. That tells me people are running here, running to Ree’hdworld. Running to a second Earth. Is that the answer, Dan? Have they blown the motherworld to smithereens? Is there no longer anywhere all you rootless wonders of map-space can boast to?”
Erlam looked at her in complete astonishment.
“You almost got it,” he said. He turned to his skimmer and opened the underbelly. Just before he climbed inside he paused, looked at Kristina who still stood without expression, watching him. “Sometimes you frighten me, Kristina. You really do.”
“You’re only afraid of the alien in me, Dan. And there’s really nothing to be frightened of.”
” ‘Bye, Kristina.”
“Come back soon, Dan.”
Shortly before dusk the sound of rocket engines, labouring and dying, brought Kristina and all the Ree’hd from their burrows. Heavy black cloud covered the sky, broken to the east where the black was streaked with orange, and the hills there seemed to bask in a yellow light that gave them a semblance of life. The rocket was a small shuttle and it was nosing down to the south west, trailing flame and white smoke.
There was consternation among the Ree’hd, some of whom began to run after the shuttle. Their forms, those who moved, were soon lost in the dimness. The rest, including Kristina, began their slow gathering at the river-side.
Kristina, as she walked from her burrow, waited for what she knew would come. The explosion. It echoed across the still lands, a deep reverberation followed by an ear-shock and then the low moan of winds whipped into a frenzy they had not expected. Bright flames lit the sky to the south west and against that brilliance many Ree’hd said they could observe the silhouetted forms of their kin moving slowly towards the crash. Kristina, with her human restrictions, could see nothing but the light of the flames against the darkening sky.
She sat down on the bank and closed her eyes. After a few minutes the wind character changed, became softer, more intricate. She felt it on her cheeks and opened her mouth as if to drink it. Some of the Ree’hd began to sing, but the great majority remained quiet. Kristina called for Urak and waited.
Urak had taken his leave the previous evening, wandering somewhere to the south. It had been the saddest moment of Kristina’s life when he had explained the necessity to go, but she had argued very little, merely nodded and accepted.
She called for him again, but there was nothing. An hour later it was very dark, prematurely so because of the cloud-covering, but her timing was accurate and it was not too long after sundown. Her mind was filled with noise, and when she relaxed a little, the noise grew and she heard the voices of many Ree’hd, talking and singing in their beautiful tongue. She recognized voices of those she knew, and she heard replies from those who were dead, and for a while, to avoid the panic that was growing within her, she followed conversations and prayers.
Here was Kroo-One who had lived in the original burrows over a thousand years before, talking now to Kristina’s neighbour, the twisted-backed Ree’hd, Han’a-kree. “Worry not,” assured the dead One, “when you join me and my sons, and their sons, and their sons, and your very first Old-kin, then you will find physical perfection again.” What remorse from the broken-backed Han’a-kree! what apology for having prayed so selfishly! And the calm voice across time, so wise, so reasonable.
Adolescent voices joining in a throng, praying for a painless metamorphosis. And a certain lack of response to that; an ancient voice murmuring that such strange things did not happen before the great race died.
Prayers for the recovery of A’mes’ree, who was wandering, and the prayers joined by dead voices, a thousand kin living now beyond the barrier that was still outside Kristina’s conception. And the medley of well-wishes carried on the wind, far inland, far from the Ree’hd sphere to where the wanderer tried to find his own personal solution to the life he had lived for thirty-seven Ree’hd years.
Kristina called for Urak again, and narrowed her thoughts unti
l just the singing of the wind was in her awareness; but across it, through it, in it… there was no answering call from Urak.
A knotted stomach, a calm reassurance from one of the Ree’hd on the river-bank, spotting her fear, spotting her alien form and saying, “Listen a while longer, but never feel sadness. If the one is not lost, then you may cause him to mourn when he cannot contact home.”
And the realization that suddenly she is accepted as a Ree’hd, and that the natives are no longer hostile towards her.
So she widened her mind and eavesdropped a while longer, and several times she was driven away by mind-voices that were stern, but vaguely amused—as if the voices could identify her humanness and her Ree’hdness, and were tolerant of one, but not of the other. She heard the garble from the past and tried not to think of the implications of what she heard; she thought, momentarily, of Zeitman and of what he would have given to know these facts about the Ree’hd—but in his own time he would come to a full understanding. Her mind bridged time, or maybe it was the voices that covered the centuries… or again, perhaps where those voices came from was a place outside time.
The evening before, the first time she had been allowed into the mind-web, Urak had stayed with her and calmed her when she had risen on to her feet and screamed, and soothed her when her mind had tried to rationalize what it heard, and tried to reject it by means of hallucination and hysteria. Through the dusk period Urak had been her guide, allowing her to feel here, and there, to touch this mind and that, helped her to identify the voices of her friends as they were manifested in the whispering world that was the river-side. He showed her the voices of the Pianhmar who still waited, deeper voices, less friendly. He showed her the voices of Rundii, confused voices, waiting for a coherency that Kristina could not imagine.
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